The future of the Kindle with Panos Panay

Oct 18, 2024 07:41 PM - 5 months ago 192195

On The Vergecast: what’s adjacent for the biggest point successful e-readers, Apple’s caller iPad Mini, a shakeup astatine Google, and more.

By David Pierce, editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host pinch complete a decade of acquisition covering user tech. Previously, astatine Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.

Oct 18, 2024, 12:41 PM UTC

Amazon launched 4 caller Kindles this week, possibly the biggest azygous motorboat time successful the 17-year history of the company’s wildly successful e-reader. One of them even comes successful color! It is very overmuch not a coincidence that the motorboat happened astir a twelvemonth after Panos Panay joined the company. Panay, a longtime Microsoft executive who was for years successful complaint of each things Windows and Surface, is now starring the devices and services squad astatine Amazon. His large task is Alexa, and turning Amazon’s adjunct into the AI level of the future. That’s apparently coming soon. Maybe. But first: e-readers.

On this section of The Vergecast, Panay joins the show to talk astir really he decided to subordinate Amazon, why group emotion their Kindles truthful much, the Scribe’s caller note-taking features, that caller colour screen, and more. He besides weighs successful connected the ongoing inclination toward distraction-free gadgets, and possibly gives america a hint aliases 2 astir AI features to come.

But earlier we get to Panay, there’s tons of gadget news to talk about. First, we people our predictions astir last week’s Tesla robotaxi event — cipher did very well, but Nilay astir apt won. Then we talk astir Apple’s caller iPad Mini, the caller Sonos Arc Ultra soundbar, the very confusing caller coalition trying to support x86 chips alive, and Analogue’s upcoming and awesome-looking Nintendo 64 emulator. After each that, it’s Kindle time.

Finally, successful the lightning round, we talk astir the latest executive shakeup wrong of Google, wherever AI is progressively moving the company. We besides talk astir Trump’s relationships pinch Big Tech CEOs, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s big, beautiful plans for the AI future — if only he tin raise the money to get there.

If you want to cognize much astir everything we talk successful this episode, present are immoderate links to get you started, opening pinch the week’s gadget news:

And connected the caller Kindles:

And successful the lightning round: